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Posted on 10/22/2005 11:49:07 AM PDT by anymouse
A private rocket developer said on Thursday it had gone to court to challenge plans by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. to jointly launch government satellites.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., also known as SpaceX, filed suit on Wednesday in federal court charging that the joint venture by the two largest U.S. military contractors is anticompetitive and violates antitrust law.
SpaceX, based in El Segundo, Calif., asked the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to block the joint venture and award SpaceX unspecified damages.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is conducting an antitrust review of the United Launch Alliance, and a SpaceX spokesman said a decision was expected as early as next week. Last month Boeing and Lockheed refiled their application with the FTC.
The plan, which would end nearly a decade of rivalry between the two in the space launch arena, has been supported by the U.S. Air Force as a way to cut the cost of putting military, spy and research satellites into orbit.
The 50-50 joint venture is expected to save the government $100 million to $150 million a year, according to the companies.
The suit charges that Boeing and Lockheed recognized the threat posed by SpaceX's developing family of low-cost launch vehicles and says the two contractors strong-armed the Air Force into an exclusive launch contract through 2011 or beyond.
Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said Boeing had not yet seen the suit but said the alliance was working through the FTC review process. "We're confident (the alliance) will ultimately be approved and meet the launch needs of the U.S. government without being a threat to competition," said Beck.
Lockheed spokesman Tom Jurkowsky said the company does not comment on pending litigation but said the alliance promised the government assured access to space at less cost.
Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group, on Thursday urged against granting sole-source launch contracts to the alliance.
"The structure slams the door on any possible competition," the group's president, Tom Schatz, said in a statement.
If United Launch Alliance is allowed to form, it will cost you more in tax dollars, as they will have no domestic competition and foreign launchers are excluded from providing lauches to US government payloads.
Space ping.
Boeing ping
Boeing has no (US) competition in the airline industry, and now they are trying to expand their monopoly into the aerospace industry. Not good. I hope this gets shut down.
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The market is not big enough for two providers. We've been thru that before. If we don't have joint launches, then one of them is going to get out of the business altogether, and that means even less competititon.
IF they develop a viable launch system, there should be plenty of commercial business for them. And in 2010, with a history of launch success, they can vie for gov't work.
And Space X has launched how many payloads? Hard to claim an impact on something that doesn't yet exist.
That said, FedGov airmail contracts enabled the commercial airline business to develop.
Cute name.
What other American aerospace company can compete against Airbus? The competition is not between American companies, but between America and EADS. Similar to the comment below.
The market is not big enough for two providers. We've been thru that before. If we don't have joint launches, then one of them is going to get out of the business altogether, and that means even less competition.
No conflict of interest here, Mr. Boeing man. :)
Boeing and Lockheed invested well over $1B each in developing the Delta IV and the Atlas V. Yes, the Government did contribute some money towards the development costs to ensure that the Government-unique requirements were accomodated in the new rockets, but the vast majority of the development costs were funded by the corporations.
The 50-50 joint venture is expected to save the government $100 million to $150 million a year, according to the companies.
How does lack of competition among producers save the customer money?
No comment here other than I hope they lose the lawsuit.
It doesn't look like SpaceX can show any actual damages. It has been the practice of NASA to consider bidders when the bidders have something to show. This is also customary business practice. A claim of monopoly is unsupportable since one company does not own the other.
Just curious, for what reasons?
The thing with this is that it locks the government in to these companies that are professional government contractors and experts in playing the cost-plus contracting game.
It's not even a matter of a monopoly, it's bad enough to be perpetuating the very corrupt DOD/NASA contracting system where every deal is made by politicians and lobbyists in Washington... and all based on bribes.
Government has reached the point where it can't do much of anything but treat politicians, senior bureaucrats, corrupt contractors, and a gaggle of hangers-on to the life of an oriental satrap.
As PJ O'Rourke said (paraphrasing), "Public" has become a synonym for tawdry, filthy, dangerous or somehow substandard. Viz. public bathrooms, public schools, etc.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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